ORIGIN

One of One: 1970 Chrysler Electric Test Vehicle-1

This 1979 Chrysler ETV-1 (chassis LS22E9NTEV001) is an experimental electric prototype, of which a surprising amount of documentation can be found online. Apparently a joint venture between GE and Chrysler (and not Siemens, as said in the listing), it was apparently once housed in a museum but has since fallen into neglect. The interior is mostly standard K-car issue, and though there’s probably no financial reward to be had in doing so we still think it’s an interesting piece of history that deserves to be properly preserved. Find it here on eBay in Gatesville, Texas with no reserve. Special thanks to reader Geoff A. for the submission!

The Etv-1 was purchased and is being transported back to a shop in Pennsylvania to be restored. http://www.racelabz.com. Anyone that has information they feel would be important to the restoration please call or email us at the contact information listed our website.

I am not disagreeing Kevin. I am just “taking the money while it’s on the table.”

My comment about body types was to make the point that each type fills a niche and people buy different modes/styles of transportation for different reasons. Propulsion systems are just one of many things that go into a buying decision and are no better or worse than body styles, car size or fuel type.

At this point big cars subsidize small cars as it is. The small cars are sold at close to a loss to meet fuel economy requirements and the price is made up for by the high profit larger vehicles.

I in no way feel I was “entitled” (not your word but my word) to money because I was buying an electric vehicle or that I am saving the world single handedly nor did I “expect” my neighbor to pay for it.

The main reason I bought the bike was because the power company was selling the extra power I was making and not using to someone else for a profit without paying me.

I thought it would be a useful way to use up some extra power instead of just leaving the lights on out of spite.

If the government wants to subsidize that decision and I am a taxpayer, I would be a fool not to take the money.

It is a question as to whether or not they should but it is a fact that they do.

A gas motorcycle would have made more sense economically even with the subsidies but not all buying decisions are based on economics.

@Roger, I never said I liked subsidies for oil producers. But I don’t think that is on -par with giving people a tax break to buy a certain type of car. Since most of us use oil in our life, I have a little less problem with that than I do with a specific type of car. Heck, I want a Ferrari, I promise not to drive it much so pollution will be practically nil. Where’s my Ferrari? That may sound ridiculous, but so is pulling from the tax revenues to partially pay for any other car.

@JPS–you are confusing body types with propulsion systems. Please. If you want an electric bike, are willing to put up with its shortcomings, go for it. Just don’t expect your neighbor to help you pay for it. And I won’t expect you to kick in some for my Ferrari.

The other tax breaks you mention are in no ways as hideous as this one. But, if you ask me, I don’t like ANY deductions. Not one. Yes, they should all be done away with. We should have a consumption-based tax system, which is not only fair, it makes EVERYONE pay taxes, not just 1/2 of us; the criminals, illegal aliens, the rich, the poor, the slackers, the tourists, everyone pays. That’s fair. You don’t subsidize my home, I don’t subsidize whatever wacky car you want to buy, and no one subsidizes the IRS.

Companies will be rewarded in the open marked for building cars the public wants.

JPS, I know that, that’s why I was pointing out what seemed like an odd situation: popularity in Scandinavia, where they wouldn’t be expected to work well (Tesla is offering the equivalent of a block heater from what I’ve heard).

Sjalabais, I think I mentioned above that I read that Tesla was having problems in Scandinavia? I read that you guys were getting extra-cold (unusual even for there) weather that was causing the Teslas not to even take a charge?

I tried to convince my father to buy a Tesla, since he has other cars and he has a short commute; but he wouldn’t go for it. With the unusual snow and super-cold (for us) weather, he was probably right; but I heard he took my mother’s AWD wagon a few days anyway!

Kevin, You are forgetting one really big subsidy given to gasoline/petroleum producers. How much tax money do you think you pay for protecting the oil fields in the middle east? I read somewhere a number of years ago(more than 15) that the cost for a gallon of gasoline is really about 12 bucks or more, a gallon if you include all the subsidies given to the folks who mine, refine and sell fuel for cars and trucks. When you get to the point where we do not subsidize oil production(trillions just in the last Iraq deal) then we can talk. It is a very smart move to be proactive and make moves that will have a long term affects after we deplete the oil supply. “The future is so bright I gotta wear shades” As for this very old school electric car…well at least they were trying. Without the early birds like this we would not be further along like we are now. 100 years ago some folks said that gasoline powered cars were not viable too.

For me, the issue with electric cars is simple. Sell one for a competitive price to an ICE car and you will sell them like hotcakes. Until then, they are a niche product.

You can even get away with them being priced slightly higher–look at the idiots I live out here with in California. The Prius is now the biggest selling car. Even though it is $3000 (at least) more than an equivalent ICE car, even though you will not break even on gas savings (at $4 a gallon) until close to 100k miles. So there are still suckers out there, smug suckers included, but it goes to show a slight premium might be swallowable.

Don’t get me going on government subsidies for ANY car. Your neighbor should never be stuck with paying a part of you car.

All that said, in my mind, here is the magic formula: electric car no more than $2000- $3000 higher than a conventional ICE car. The electric car must give 200-300 miles on a single charge. That range must include heat or A/C on full time A charge cannot take more than 10 minutes, and that would be a full charge. The cars must drive and act the same way in Arizona at 120 degrees and Chicago and 10 below.

When you get to that point, your electric will sell well. Anything until then is talk, BS, and niche players.

All that said, let the marketplace decide. And that is a marketplace defined as not ONE taxpayer penny of subsidization.

I DO agree that you have to take into consideration the amount of energy consumed to generate the electricity but then the same should be done for gasoline. Gasoline does not magically appear at the gas station.

Lets go by cost then.

It costs about one to two cents per mile for the electric bike BUT I make my own electricity and am using surplus power that I am not being compensated for by the electric company so my cost is ZERO cents per mile…

A Prius gets 50 mpg and let’s say gas costs $3.50 per gallon….

That is 7 cents per mile.

Using a cost of one cent per mile for the bike it will go 7 times farther than the Prius for the same amount of money…..

When it is wet outside, suggest exiting this car by opening the door and standing up on the door’s threshold and then jumping to the ground without touching the door . . . in order not to become a part of a 1,000 amp circuit . . . Zzzzzaaapp!!!

@JPSO86, the bickering was mild-mannered. To start with at least. I’m posting from Norway, as you surely know that is the country with the Tesla S on spot #1 of all car sales for several months. It is a gorgeous, highly impressive car – and enterprise. The EV world sorely needed a desirable car like the Tesla and a usable car like the Leaf. The Th!nk was a nice try, but still came about like a joke. Our national postal service used them for a short time – imagine their range in 30 blue.

The real issue with EV’s is not so much their range, resale value/battery life or solid issues with energy generation. I side with Clinton in that it’s all about money. EV’s are popular in Norway for one reason only and that is the omission of automotive taxation. We pay twice the price of Germans, maybe three times of what Americans pay for a common new ICE car. Taxation gets stiffer the bigger cars and engines are. A Panamera starts at roughly 300,000USD here, a comparable S at 75,000.

Show us the EV package that competes with, say, a Volvo V70 on its own merits, powerful, good range, practical, nicely priced and even – or especially – the BaT crowd will cheer and applaud.

It has 1979 Horizon sedan tail lights to go with it’s Horizon interior. I saw three Tesla roadsters sitting on the same used car lot today. One of them had $69,995 on its windshield in tape, which seems a lot for a car presented in such a ghetto manner. They’ve managed to maintain their $15/mile depreciation rate even as the Model S has become the ubiquitous car of the traffic-obstructing hyper-miler.

Of course my vantage point is distorted as I work for a company that manufactures electric drive systems for all kind of vehicles, but getting this car to run should be a lot easier than restoring an IC powered car. Find out what kind of motor it is that is fitted, most likely you have to replace it again… Get a motor from a large electric forklift – 72/80V is great but a 48V system will do ok too. Get a suitable Curtis controller and wire it up. Of course a set of Li-Ion batteries from Valence or someone will cost you more than a new car so perhaps better to live with the weight and just wire up a bunch of regular lead acid batteries. I was rather keen on a motor for a diesel-electic tank that we had, 1800Nm at 0 rpm and some 460kW continuous power – could have made a quick drag strip car. But the cost of a 600V ultracap pack was way beyond any reasonable budget even if I had got the motor and motor controller for free.

I drove a pininfarina designed regenerative braking electric sports car aboyt 20 years ago. It was an eerie glimpse into the future as here in Paris there are now shared PF auto lib cars in every neighborhood. I’m a diehard ic fan but I know the future is electric. I’m ok with that. Look, given the choice between an ic car that’s too complicated for me to work on or an equivalent ev I’ll take the ev.

‘Wonder why the Museum of Science and Energy (Oak Ridge, TN) cut it loose to a private party, rather than sending it to another museum that might have better preserved it? Hopefully, it will find the right home, this time.

We’re an IC-centric hobby, but the future will obviously continue to shift toward an EV world. That reality doesn’t bother me, even piques my interest, yet my 21 year old son is mortified by the thought of EV’s displacing “cars that go vroom.” Kinda funny that a young, otherwise wired kid isn’t yet ready to embrace the electric future of transport, but perhaps it’s because he was raised around some truly great cars.

For a time, last decade, I ran a Think electric car for short commutes to a job working with large displacement, petrol V8 engines, providing a daily dose of irony. While not a great car, that little Think was a good solution to my need for a short commute that would scarcely have had time to light the cats off on an IC engine. It hasn’t taken long for the segment to leap from Think to Tesla in capability.

After owning an early electric car from the 70’s, a Sebring Vanguard Citicar that had a max speed of about 25mph on a good day, this technology does not look much better. The design history is admirable regarding the drive and this was also the first attempt at using the brakes to ‘recharge’. This would make a good static display for a recharging station in CA so that electric car owners could feel even more self satisfaction with their purchase.

I wonder if there’s any issues licensing the thing? Could be a neat way for someone to get into an electric car. Obviously batteries would need to be replaced at this point, but assuming you could get the other stuff working it could be a neat project and driver.

“Hello, AAA’? This is triple A, how may we help you this morning? “I can’t get my car started, it’s 12 degrees outside”. AAA: Do you know what the problem is? “I think it might need a jump, do your trucks carry 8000 watt generators so I can get this thing started?” AAA: Stand by please.

The interior bits (and presumably the underpinnings of the whole car) are from a Plymouth Horizon, not a K-car. (The “sporty” Horizon TC3 model also debuted in 1979, but this GE-Chrysler project seems to use the 4-door as it basis.)

Fascinating piece of history. Will ultimately represent a dead end, but in terms of cultural value it definitely should end up in a museum.

I imagine this thing on a rotating pedestal on the auto show circuit demonstrating our aspirational future during the nadir of the 70’s energy crisis.

A cursory Google search uncovers that this thing had regenerative braking and a 70-mile range in stop and go traffic in a pre-lithium ion era. With it’s probable weight it was no doubt a performance pig, and it’s endearingly ugly in that late-70’s way.

I love this. I have soft spot for electric cars as my dd is a 2012 Nissan Leaf. There have been many attempts over the years to make a useable electric car and they deserve to be preserved. I think the Petersen Automotive Museum has the last remaining EV-1 in existence. They should buy this if they don’t have one already. This is a real piece of history folks.

I’m waiting. If it doesn’t already exist, we will soon have an EV museum, a Greenfield Village with batteries.

Some enterprising, or just EV-sensitive, soul will see the value of compiling samples of all the successes and the tried-and-faileds that led us to the to the Everyman’s Mundane Hybrids that now flood the market. With the (ick) Prius at one end and the Tesla and 918 at the other, there’s a wide range of attempts to move us from HP to KW.

And that’s where this little splat and all of its one-off brethren and examples of its low-volume experimental pals belong. In 50 years, that collection will be as entertaining and instructive as any internal-combustion-powered collection is today.

But in the meantime, someone has to buy, restore and hold this. Anyone out there good at grant writing?

Very interesting – the Tesla’s lost granddaddy? Looks like it has been build with Chrysler’s famed attention to detail and quality. But I absolutely agree this should be preserved, just that I don’t see this in any private person’s hands. Except, maybe, for Elon Musk’s hands.